„Balkan criminals control one of biggest cartels“

An FBI statement before a US Senate Committee in October assessed the organised crime situation in the Balkans.

By Dimitris Agrafiotis for Southeast European Times in Athens – 21/11/03

Organised crime in the Balkans has attracted the interest of the American law enforcement community and the US Senate. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) believes that crime from the Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe, and the former Soviet Union is expanding and will continue to expand.

„In the last year or two, European nations have recognised that Balkan organised crime is one of the greatest criminal threats that they face,“ Assistant Director of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division Grant D. Ashley said in an October statement before the Subcommittee on European Affairs of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

He added that European police organisations estimate that Balkan crime rings now control more than 70 per cent of the heroin market in some of the larger European nations, and are rapidly taking over human smuggling, prostitution and car theft rings across Europe.
………, Albanian organised crime has reached the United States, creating partnerships with the Gambino, Genovese, and Luchese families to facilitate specific crimes.……………….

„Balkan criminals control one of biggest cartels“

Criminals originally from Serbia and Montenegro „control the criminal underground in Australia and have connections with gangs in Colombia, Mexico, and Asia.“

Source: B92 Monday, June 1, 2015 | 10:40

This is reported by the Daily Telegraph, which quoted „a lengthy News Corp Australia investigation.“

According to this, one of the biggest narco-cartel in the world is led by criminals from the Balkans, immigrants from the former Yugoslavia, notorious crime figures that in the 1990s „who once controlled Kings Cross’ Golden Mile but have now formed offshore bases in Montenegro, Spain and Holland to move the drugs, guns and cash about.“

According to the paper, they left crime and Australia during the last decade and returned to the Balkans, but have now „carefully planned their return“ and operate a global criminal network.

According to the article, drugs are brought and distributed in Australia through local motorcycle gangs, while the cartel is now „activating its sleepers“ in the second and third generation of Australian criminals.

A police official said that this criminal organization was the greatest threat to Australia thanks to its firm basis, discipline and influence in local communities.

„Those families are described as being either direct relatives or from well-established and historical Mafia-like clans from the former Yugoslavian states who moved to Australia in the second migration wave from the Balkan region in the 1980s and 1990s in state-sponsored infiltration of Australia by the former regimen of Serbian Slobodan Milosevic,“ reported the paper.

The article went on to say that some of the criminals believed to have withdrawn in the 1990s returned to head the cartels from their bases in Serbia and Montenegro. According to this, „the mostly Australian nationals run group, led by former Kings Cross identity Vaso Ulic who left Australia in 2005 never to return.“

The paper said that the network brings at least six tons of drugs, cocaine and ecstasy, to Australia each year.

It added that „it has been confirmed the prosecution’s office in Montenegro has an extensive file on Ulic and other figures in the country as part of an international arrest warrant to break the cartel up,“ but that „while no extradition treaty exists with Montenegro, both police there and in Serbia have been actively working with AFP agents to establish if the source of the global crime was perpetrated locally and therefore the arrest warrants can be pursued and prosecuted locally.“

The same report said that the drugs are smuggled from South America to Europe, China, and Nigeria.